About Me

I received my MA in philosophy of science many years ago and currently reviving my academic interests. I hope to stimulate individuals in the realms of science, philosophy and the arts...to provide as much free information as possible.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Batteries not needed...the Hula Hoop

This day...

In 1964, Arthur Melin obtained a patent for the hula-hoop. An Australian visiting California told Melin that in his country, children twirled bamboo hoops around theirs waists in gym class. Melin, who started toy giant Wham-O in 1948 with his boyhood friend Richard Knerr with slingshots and named their mail-order company after the sound a slingshot made when its projectile struck a target. They branched into other sporting goods, including pellet guns, crossbows and daggers. They added toys in 1955, when building inspector Fred Morrison sold them a plastic flying disc he had developed after watching Yale University students toss pie tins. Wham-O began selling the disc they called the Pluto Platter two years later before modifying it and renaming it the Frisbee.

Wham-O history...

From the off-the-wall novelty items to classic "basic" toys and sporting goods, WHAM-O® means innovative products that spark the imagination, give people pleasure and hold their interest. Just think about how any boy in the 1950s could have grown up without a WHAM-O Slingshot. That was the product that gave the company, founded in 1948, its distinctive name. When the missile hit its target, it made the sound "WHAM-O"!

The zany founders of WHAM-O®, Arthur "Spud" Melin and Richard Knerr, became known as the gurus of blockbuster fads. A look at the history of WHAM-O brand products provides an interesting and entertaining peek at how some world-renowned products came to be.

A building inspector named Fred Morrison puttered with and refined a plastic flying disc that he sold to WHAM-O® in 1955. Introduced to the consumer market in 1957 as the Pluto Platter™ (the name inspired by the country's obsession with Unidentified Flying Objects), it was modified in 1958, renamed the FRISBEE® disc, and has become an American icon.

In 1961, Wham-O introduced the original Slip ’N Slide®, which quickly became a permanent warm weather favorite among kids around the world.

Melin and Knerr were always open to original and often strange ideas. They experimented with toys themselves and would try out products directly with potential buyers. They heard of Australian children using a bamboo ring for exercise and immediately turned out...you guessed it...HULA HOOP® toy hoop. Knerr and Melin promoted it for months in 1958 on Southern California playgrounds where they would do demonstrations and give away hoops to get the children to learn and play. Their perseverance turned HULA HOOP toy hoops into the greatest fad the country has ever seen. Twenty-five million were sold in four months!

In the early 1960s, Norman Stingley, a chemical engineer, accidentally created a plastic product that bounced uncontrollably. He offered the product to Melin and Knerr and the SUPERBALL® bouncy ball was created, followed by the Super Gold Ball, Super Baseball and Super Dice. In one celebrated incident, a giant SUPERBALL, produced as a promotional item, was accidentally dropped out of a 23rd floor hotel window in Australia. It shot back up 15 floors, then down again into a parked convertible car. The car was totaled but the ball survived the "test" in perfect condition.

During the 1960s, WHAM-O® sold some 20 million SUPERBALL® Bouncy Balls – Although competitors tried to make balls with properties similar to those of the SUPERBALL® bouncy ball. Countless customers have never been satisfied with mere copies. For them, the WHAM-O® SUPERBALL Bouncy Ball is still #1.

One of the most exotic WHAM-O product ideas came as a result of Melin's safari to Africa in the early 1960s. He discovered a species of fish that laid eggs in mud during Africa's dry season. When the rains came, the eggs hatched and fish emerged. Ah-ha, thought Melin. Sell chunks of mud, add water, and voila, instant aquarium. Millions of dollars of orders for INSTANT FISH were taken. Unfortunately, the fish brought back to America wouldn't mate, so no fish eggs, no mud and the end of a great idea.

Dozens of great ideas came and went. WHAM-O® was nothing if not daring and contemporary. During the great bomb shelter craze of the 1960s, the company marketed the plans and parts for a $119 do-it-yourself shelter. In 1962, when the limbo dance craze was popular, WHAM-O sold a Limbo party kit with instructions on how to do the dance. When the first JAWS movie came out in 1975, WHAM-O was there with "real" plastic Great White Shark teeth.

Many of WHAM-O's products have been aimed, literally, at kids. The AIR BLASTER toy introduced in 1965 could blow out candle at 20 feet with a "ball" of air. While the HUF'N PUF blowgun shot soft rubber darts, a gentler version of the real thing, which Melin and Knerr discovered during a toy-scouting journey to Africa. The array of flying birds, planes, bubble makers, darts and guns created by WHAM-O in the 50s and 60s is amazing.

The HACKY SACK® footbag was added to WHAM-O’s product line-up and became a "foot fad," a sort of FRISBEE® DISC-for-the-feet success story. Other additions in the 1970s and 1980s included the BUBBLE THING, which made "unbelievable, humongous bubbles!" And the ingenious ROLLER RACER SIT SKATE.

WHAM-O® began as an independent company. In 1982 it was purchased by Kransco Group Companies. In 1994, Mattel bought WHAM-O from Kransco. In 1997, WHAM-O became independent once again as a group of investors purchased the company from Mattel. In 2006 WHAM-O was purchased by Cornerstone. WHAM-O is currently located in Emeryville, CA.

How Products Are Made...

History...

Varieties of hoops have always been toys. Along with the ball, the hoop may be among the most popular toys. The ancient Greeks were the first to popularize the hoop, and many of their documents-including illustrations on pottery-show the hoop in action. The hoop was a toy for Greek children, but it was also an exercise device. Hooprolling was thought to be a light and beneficial exercise for people not strong enough for more intense exercise or sport. Roman children also played with hoops, and both Greek and Roman versions were made of metal fashioned from scrap strips.

Native Americans used hoops for more than just toys. Eskimos played a game in which a hoop is rolled and poles are thrown through it as it rolls. This game, for children and adults, taught practical skills needed in harpooning and other hunting. North American Indians used the hoop in many ways. Like the Eskimos, the Indians used it as a target for teaching accuracy in shooting arrows and in throwing. Among the Lakota Indians, hoop dancing became a sophisticated art form that is still practiced today. To the Lakota, the hoop represents the circle of life, the vast circle of the horizon as the viewer turns to look all around, and the many repeating patterns in nature like the cycle of the moon. In the hoop dance, the dancer may use 12-28 hoops to forms symbols and figures.

Like the Hula Hoop, the hoops made by the hoop dancer must be large enough to move over the shoulders and around the body; hoops that are about 28 in (71 cm) in diameter are made of natural materials like willow, rattan (a flexible but strong vine), or plastic tubing. Rattan or willow is soaked in water until it softens and can be shaped into a circle. The ends are wrapped with binding. The tubing easily takes the round shape, and a short length of wooden dowel is inserted into the matching ends to even the alignment and form a strong joint. This is also wrapped with binding. Colored binding is wrapped around the entire tube so patterns can be used in the dance. White, yellow, red, and black are the colors of the four directions (north, south, etc.) and the four races of human-kind, according to the Lakota.

Children's hoop toys in Western Europe were made of wood. Hoop-rolling also achieved fad status in England in the 1800s, and those hoops were wood fitted with metal strips or tires on the outer edge. Hoop rolling was called bowling a hoop. The hoop was propelled along the sidewalk, street, or ground with the hand or with a stick called a skimmer. This same fad traveled to the United States, and antique hoops are now favorite toys of collectors. Push hoops were used to help teach babies to walk. Usually, hoops for the very young contained bells or made other sounds to hold the child's interest. Another popular design had pieces of wood shaped much like the spools that hold sewing thread on the spokes of the push hoop. As the hoop turned, the spools slid back and forth on the spokes to make a jingling sound. The rolling hoop was patented in 1871 by Albert Hill. Hill's rolling hoops were about 12-20 in (20-51 cm) in diameter and were pushed with handles that were 20-27 in (51-69 cm) long. The handles and hoops were made of wood with a natural finish, but the noise-making spools were brightly painted.

Other hoops uses and games have long histories but are still known today. Hoops can be thrown, as in the game called quoits, or spun. They are used as targets in games like basketball, and, in football, suspended hoops or tires are targets for improving the aim of quarterbacks. Also in football, hoops or tires laid on the ground are used to improve foot mobility, coordination, and speed among players.

The toy known as the Hula Hoop was born out of the brainstorm of two American toy inventors who learned about an Australian practice. Arthur "Spud" Melin and Richard Knerr heard that Australian children used rings made of bamboo for exercise. They produced a plastic hoop in 1958 and promoted it around the Los Angeles, California, area by going to playgrounds, demonstrating the hoop to the kids, and giving away Hula Hoops. Their playground-to-playground salesmanship produced the biggest toy fad the United States has ever witnessed. In four months, over 25 million Hula Hoops were sold in the United States for $1.98 each; worldwide, over 100 million were sold in 1958 alone. In Japan, the hoop was banned, and the Soviet Union described it as evidence of the decadence of American culture. At the peak of its popularity, Wham-O, Inc. produced 20,000 hoops per day; it is estimated that the plastic tubing for all the Hula Hoops sold would stretch around the world more than five times.

Numerous records in the Guinness Book of World Records have involved hoop spinning; in 1999, Lori Lynn Lomeli spun 82 Hula Hoops at the same time for three complete revolutions, a feat that garnered her a place in the book. The Hula Hoop phenomenon never completely disappeared off toy shelves, but it has ebbed and flowed in popularity like most fads. In the late 1990s, the Hula Hoop again experienced a renaissance and appears to be going strong long after its 40th birthday.

The Hula Hoop Song

by

Teresa Brewer

1958

The Hula Hoop Song

Donna Kohler / Carl Maduri III / J. Testa

Hula hoop, hula hoopAnyone can play the hula hoopHula hoop, hula hoopAnyone can play from three to a hundred and ten

(Hula, hula, hula)

From LA to New York, from Georgia to Duluth (Hula hoop)Everyone is playing with the hula hoop (Hula hoop)A-red ones and the green ones, yellow, white, and blue (Hula hoop)Young and old, rich or poor, are spinning them too

(Hula, hula, hula)

Hula hoop, hula hoopEveryone is playing with the hula hoopLook at them spin, tryin' to winAnyone can play from three to a hundred and ten

(Hula, hula, hula)

Oh, what fun to see them runAnd to see them sway (Hula hoop)Trying to keep the hula hoopFrom, ah, slippin' away (Hula hoop)

Now if they rock when they should sway,It would fall to the ground (Hula hoop)Then again, once againThe hoop spins around and 'round

(Hula, hula, hula)

Hula hoop, hula hoopEveryone is playing with the hula hoopLook at them spin, tryin' to winAnyone can play from three to a hundred and ten

(Hula, hula, hula)

Hula hoop, hula hoopEveryone is playing with the hula hoopLook at them spin, tryin' to winAnyone can play from three to a hundred and ten

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Poet colleague

Annus mirabilis-1905 March is a time of transition winter and spring commence their struggle between moments of ice and mud a robin appears heralding the inevitable life stumbling from its slumber it was in such a period of change in 1905 that the House of Physics would see its Newtonian axioms of an ordered universe collapse into a new frontier where the divisions of time and space matter and energy were to blend as rain and wind in a storm that broke loose within the mind of Albert Einstein where Brownian motion danced seen and unseen, a random walk that became his papers marching through science reshaping the very fabric of the universe we have come to know we all share a common ancestor a star long lost in the eons of memory and yet in that commonality nature demands a permutation a perchance genetic roll of the dice which births a new vision lifting us temporarily from the mystery exposing some of the roots to our existence only to raise a plethora of more questions as did the papers of Einstein in 1905